BSA facilities receive honors

U.S. News & World Report has ranked three clinical speciality services at Baptist St. Anthony's Health System among the top 50 in the nation.

The rankings will be in the magazine's July 18 "Best Hospitals" issue that will hit newsstands next week, said Mary Barlow, BSA's director of corporate communications.

BSA ranked 38th among hospitals in neurology-neurosurgery, 47th among cancer care centers and 48th for respiratory care services, according to information from U.S. News.

This marks the fourth consecutive year the hospital had some of its services listed on the Best Hospital list. Last year, the hospital ranked 27th in neurology and neurosurgical services, 43rd in cancer services, 44th in respiratory diseases. and 50th in geriatrics, or care of the elderly.

"This is the work of 2,800 incredible employees and 450 dedicated physicians who are committed to providing for our patients in love, service and dignity," said John Hicks, BSA president and chief executive. "We strive to maintain the proper nurse-patient ratios, the very best technology and equipment, and a well-trained staff who assist our physicians in the care of our patients."

BSA's and Methodist Hospital in Houston were the only neurology-neurosurgery services in Texas to make the top 50 hospitals list. The University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, also in Houston, was the only other Texas hospital on the top 50 cancer services list. And University Health System in San Antonio was the only other Texas hospital to make the list for respiratory services.

According to information from U.S. News, the scoring is based on a methodology developed at the University of Chicago and conducted by RTI International in North Carolina. Factors include reputation among physicians surveyed, mortality ratio, the number of Medicare discharges and ratio of registered nurses to patients.

To be considered, hospitals must be a member of the Council of Teaching hospitals or have a medical school affiliation, or have at least nine of 18 key technological services.

Of the 6,007 hospitals nationwide, fewer than one-third made it past that hurdle, and of those, 176 hospitals had at least one speciality in the top 50.

"To be considered in a particular specialty, a hospital had to perform a minimum number of specified procedures on Medicare patients in 2001, 2002, and 2003 - at least 1,270 procedures for heart and heart surgery, for example," the magazine states. "Or the hospital had to have been recommended by at least one physician in U.S. News surveys in 2003, 2004, and 2005."

U.S. News draws up its Best Hospitals "Honor Roll" of 16 hospitals from those 176 top-50 facilities. They must show a high level of excellence in at least six of the 17 specialities. This year Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore topped that list. None was from Texas.

"To be recognized as one of the top 176 hospitals, we were very proud of that," said Bob Williams, BSA's chief operating officer.